


Turn Off the Lights (Please Don’t)

by Gray_Skies_Rising



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Accidental Brother Acquisition, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, And he’s gonna get one so help me, Drugs, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Intrusive Thoughts, Jason Has a Brother Instinct and Doesn’t Know How to Deal with it, One day I will write about Bruce and Dick’s issues but today is not that day, Overdosing, POV Alternating, Suicide Attempt, Suicide Idealization, Tim Drake Needs a Hug, Tim Drake is Not Okay, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:56:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29791560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gray_Skies_Rising/pseuds/Gray_Skies_Rising
Summary: His hands were fisted into the heavy curtains, ready to pull them closed. The afterimage of one single light stopped him.-x-After catching a glimpse of light in the, supposedly, empty Drake manor, Jason decided it was time for a midnight walk.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Comments: 45
Kudos: 281





	1. Jason

**Author's Note:**

> General warning that this fic is going to go to some dark places, especially during Tim’s PoV, so be careful and take care of yourself.
> 
> Chapter one TW’s: offscreen fighting and mentions of smoking.
> 
> If you see any that I missed, don’t be afraid to point them out!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> General warning that this fic is going to go to some dark places, especially during Tim’s PoV, so be careful and take care of yourself.
> 
> Chapter one TW’s: offscreen fighting and mentions of smoking.
> 
> If you see any that I missed, don’t be afraid to point them out!

It was never truly dark in Gotham. Lights from lamp posts, cars, and apartments are reflected back onto the city by the smog filled sky. Even in the poorest parts of the city, where most of the street lights were broken and no one could afford to leave the lights on much less afford a car, your hand would always be visible when you put it in front of your face. Unable to disappear into the inky darkness that seemed to only exist in story books.

Not even clear out in the suburbs, the light of the city seemed to reach with spindly fingers to grasp the edges of buildings and trees. The few stars, and sometimes the moon, that managed to shine through the permanent haze does nothing to darken the night.

From the outside, the manor seemed dark. The faint glow of the air making the gray stone a beacon against the long shadows it itself casts.

A light flicks on in one room, lighting the yard without a curtain to dampen the beam. The twin slams of heavy doors seem to shake the building down to its foundation.

Jason crawls another foot away from the edge of the roof and curls himself once again around his knees. The rivets of the tin roofing bite through his pants and into his bare feet.

He hadn’t thought that he would be out long, just enough for the usual exchange of insults and for one of them to storm out. The sun had still colored the world beyond the present blacks and blues when he had crawled out of his window.

A wind rips through his thin shirt and he, not for the first time, mourns the fact that he left his phone back in the living room. If he had it, he at least would have a way to pass the time and drive his own thoughts away.

He needed to go in soon. Bruce always checked in with him after a fight. Jason let’s the man live in his belief that he couldn’t hear the venomous words being thrown back and forth.

Taking a deep breath, Jason slowly lifts himself into a crouch. The roof was slanted at a steep angle that would make it nigh impossible to stop if he over corrected. An accidental summersalt that would end in a deadly embrace with the cold, unforgiving ground below.

Rising from the crouch, a light from across the wooded backyard caught his eye.

Wayne Manor lived on the top of a hill. When standing at the tip of the roof, you can see the two other estates that bordered its own. The McClean manor was nothing but a smudge on the horizon as it bordered the farthest part of the estate. However, the Drake Manor was significantly closer, barely half a mile away.

It was also empty. Supposedly.

He forced himself to move and picked his way carefully down the roof. When he reached the edge, Jason swung his legs down and used the manors rough stones to climb back to his windowsill.

His hands were fisted into the heavy curtains, ready to pull them closed. The afterimage of one single light stopped him.

Jason wanted to dismiss the light from down the hill. He wanted to draw his blackout curtains and crawl into his bed. He wanted to drench his room in darkness. He didn't want a light on in an empty house to reach its clawed fingers under his ribs and bury themselves in his lungs.

Why? Why did the fact that a rich, snobbish couple was probably being robbed bothering him so much? It was probably Selina anyways, not many other thieves come out this far, besides, she only ever stole from people who deserved it. From what Jason saw, when Bruce had introduced him to the Drakes, they could definitely be knocked down a peg or five. So why did he care?

A knock on his door startled him from his twisting thoughts.

Jason looked out the still open window; the backyard was dark once again. It looked like Bruce was ready to check in.

He pulled his lighter out from his pants pocket and half hid it behind the curtain. Bruce would see it, he was sure, but that was the intention.

He pretended to rub the sleep out of his eyes as he opened his door; it was the first thread of a long web of lies he would be weaving. When his eyes landed on Bruce he slightly tensed his shoulders, looked slightly off away from his adoptive fathers eyes, and made sure he was breathing down and not forwards.

The first words out of Bruce’s mouth, instead of whatever awkward conversation starter he would pull out of his ass was of course, “Have you been smoking again?”

Jason crossed his arms, immediately on the defensive. “No,” he scoffed, his tells still singing a lie.

Bruce opened his mouth before clamping it shut. He was always over cautious with his words after an argument, refusing to say anything that may lead to another one. It often meant he left what he needed to say stuck in the back of his throat. Jason wasn’t jealous.

Bruce cleared his throat, “I’m just checking in before I head to bed.” He was dropping the subject; Jason let the tension in his shoulders fall away, although he kept the scowl fixed in place.

Jason sighed and loosened his stance, “Okay, see you in the morning.”

Bruce nodded, clearly wanting to say something else. Instead he turned away, his shoulders slumping imperceptibly.

Jason shut his own door. He waited until Bruce’s door closed softly, a harsh contrast to earlier, before dropping his own pretense. Letting out a sigh, Jason tuned back into his room.

A cool stiff breeze blew into the room, managing to move the heavy curtains and reminded Jason that his clothes were still quite thin. He only debated for a moment, the lone light flashing in his mind's eye, before he slipped on his shoes and grabbed his jacket.

It looked like he was going on a midnight walk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wonder who left that at light on 🤔


	2. Tim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim has a bad night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a short little chapter, but it’ll help you understand the mindset Tim is currently in.
> 
> Chapter two TW’s: intrusive thoughts, dark imagery, and implied child neglect/abuse.
> 
> If I missed any, please tell me!

Emptiness is something Tim has always known. It was the only thing that filled the manor he resided in. It twisted through the halls like the great basilisk in that one Harry Potter movie. It filled the halls, hissing silence and spitting loneliness.

One night, not all that long ago, Tim remembers laying alone in his dark bedroom waiting for the great beast to pass outside his door. It loved to do rounds around the house, hitting every creaky floorboard and squeaking every hinge. He remembers listening as it slowly wound its way down the hall. He remembers counting every floorboard creak until it passed by. He remembers freezing as it stopped outside. He can still feel the oppressiveness of it sliding underneath his door to fill his room, choking him.

He had screamed then. He had screamed for parents that were halfway around the world. He had screamed for a nanny that had quit years ago. He had screamed for the housekeeper who wouldn’t be coming for days yet. He screamed for the lady that delivered his bimonthly groceries. He had screamed for the neighbors that probably don't even know he existed. He screamed for anyone who might have been listening and even for those weren’t.

_No one is coming for you._ It had hissed. _No one cares for the boy that only ever gets in the way. No one would care if I came like this for you every night. Who would you tell? Who would believe the boy that only ever told lies? And even if they did, what proof would you have? Where would the scars be that I would leave? I am nothing but the emptiness of your own home and yet I can hurt you in more ways than you could ever imagine._

It traced frostbite inducing claws across Tim’s skin, making him shiver despite the layers upon layers of blankets.  _ I could tear your flesh off your bones and yet you would remain whole. I could leave you burning all alone in this house without scorching a single hair. I could make you watch as I tore apart everything you loved and you could do nothing to stop me. _

Claws dug into his stomach and twisted, churning it until bile rose in his throat. The bile made it no father because Tim  _ couldn’t breathe. _

_ Wouldn’t you like that?  _ It whispered in his ear.  _ Wouldn’t you like to watch your entire world burn at your own hand? _

Tim had ripped himself from his bed then. Moving with more speed than he had ever thought he had possessed, he had leapt across his room and slammed his hand on the light switch.

Light had burst through the air, casting the room into a sharp contrast, scattering shadows and warding the emptiness off.

Tim slid down the wall and tried to drag oxygen back into his lungs with grasping breaths. What little he could get was quickly made ineffective as hot tears spilled down his face, clawing breaths into shuddering sobs. He cried himself to exhaustion and then, at last, to sleep.

He hasn’t slept with the light off since, not that he’s been sleeping all that much anyways.


	3. Jason

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason finds out who is in Drake Manor.
> 
> (This is a heavy chapter, so heed the chapter warnings. I did put a chapter summery in the end notes but please be careful and take care of yourself!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I really just stay up and rewrite this entire chapter, and therefore had to re-outline my plot, just so these characters could stay more in character? Yes.
> 
> Do I regret it? No.
> 
> Chapter three TWs: implied/referenced child neglect, mention of past character death, drug mention, drug overdose, call to 911, and dissociation.
> 
> Please tell me if I missed any! (Chapter summery in end notes)

Drake Manor is fairly close to the main road that winds through Bristle. In fact, if you stand at just the right place where the road splits into the Drake’s driveway, you can catch a glimpse of their front door; something that is usually only common in the ‘poorer’ part of Bristle.

The richest of the rich liked to hide behind twisting roads and snarled foliage. Leaving the world to wonder what rusted treasures and dusty relics lay beyond their towering wrought iron fences.

However, the Dakes were fairly new to being one of the richer families, so maybe they didn’t have anything to hide yet. That’s what Jason thought at least.

The Dakes had nothing to hide.

As he scrambled over the fence and past the truly, shitty security, Jason hoped to any god above that that would turn out to be true. The sinking feeling in his stomach told him otherwise.

The light came from the third floor. There was an old oak tree that stretched its thick, gnarled branches and almost seemed to intertwine with the siding on the manor. The light from the window bounced off the branches and almost made the tree seem to glow.

If Jason hadn’t been more attention to the scuff marks on the lowest branches than pretty lights, he probably would have thought it to be a little magical. But he wasn’t, and he didn’t.

Jason ran a finger over where the bark had been worn smooth. It had most likely been caused by frequent use. It was possible that the intruder had used this entice many times, that was, with the Drakes being gone so often.

Bruce had said that the Drakes spend less than 30 days in their manor every year. 30 days was the maximum number of days a year you had to live in a house or on a property before you started paying taxes on it… or something like that. Jason hadn’t really been paying attention at the time; basically, the Dakes were committing tax fraud without it actually being illegal.

But who would case the same house enough times to leave  _ permanent  _ marks on their entrance (and possible exit)? Especially when the owners didn’t come back often enough to regularly bring back new stuff.

_ Well _ , Jason thought as he curled his fingers around the lowest branch and hauled himself up onto it,  _ there was only one way to find out. _

It was easier said than done, climbing the tree. The old oak was very much dead, and had been for quite a few years by the looks of it, and  _ very _ brittle. More often than not, Jason found himself following the scuff marks on the tree rather instead of finding his own way; lest he make a wrong step and plummet. Even then, the limbs bent under his weight like twigs instead of the branches that he could barely fit hit his arms around that they were.

When he reached the window, he reached a problem. While everywhere else the branches reached all the way to the house, there was about a three foot gap that spanned from the end of the branch to the window. This wouldn’t have been a problem for Jason if the window was opened. Three feet was not a long distance and Jason had jumped father when he was still living on the streets, before Robin. The window, however, was not open and there was no ledge on the window to grab onto if he fell.

Jason rested a hand on the snapped end of the branch and tried not to think of its implications. The knot in his stomach was growing tighter.

Instead, Jason decided to just look inside and see if he could gauge the situation. Yeah, that sounded like a plan.

When Jason peered into the room through the window he was not expecting to see an undeniably child’s room.

There superhero posters tacked to the walls, different kinds of figurines and trinkets stacked on shelves, and even a stuffed animal poking out from underneath the dresser. It was clean in that messy way that only small children can get away with.

It looked lived in.

It looked lived in in a way that didn’t line up with being gone for 11/12 months of the year.

Jason just stopped and stared. The image that was being processed was just not computing.

There was a child on the Drake estate.

There was no burglar with a knapsack of goodies. It was only a child that was existing in a supposedly empty manor.

Bruce had taught Jason to make connections and paint a picture out of the smallest piece of information. He did  _ not _ like the colors this room was giving him to paint with.

_ Maybe it’s one of the staff's kids, _ Jason halfheartedly tried to rationalize. He knew it was false before the thought had even half formed. Most staff didn’t live on site at manors anymore, and were even less likely to do so when they had kids. Not only that, but Jason doubted the Drakes would let someone else’s family live in their manor when they  _ were _ home, much less so when they weren’t.

_ A street kid somehow found their way up to the manor, found it empty, and decided to stay here, _ was another halfhearted suggestion that his brain threw up. Jason dismissed it immediately. The kid obviously had connections to some kind of money to even think about decorating the room, much more so to turn on the lights.

Before he could think up anymore ideas pulled from threads, a door just out of his line of sight opened. Out stumbled the child in question.

By the looks of it, they were male; most of high society still had to catch up on the fact that girls could have short hair too. He was short and skinny, way too skinny for as rich as the Drakes are. However, the thing that caught Jason’s attention was the kids eyes.

The kids on the streets called it  _ Dead Eyes.  _ It’s how you knew the users and runners from the dealers. It’s one of the ways you knew who to avoid and who it was safe to stick around with for a day or two before ditching them. Jason had never needed to be told about the warning, he knew the glazed over eyes all too well. His mother had had dead eyes when she had died.

This kid had dead eyes as he stared into Jason’s clear ones.

The kid said something to Jason (not that he could hear it), swayed dangerously on his feet, and then collapsed into a heap on the floor.

Jason’s heart jumped into his throat and he raced down the tree as fast as he dared. Sprinting away from the tree and around the corner, he nearly slipped coming up the marble steps.

He tried the door handle and sent both thanks and curses at the kid for leaving the door unlocked. No matter where you lived, this was still Gotham.

As soon as the door was opened far enough, Jason tore up the stairs to the third floor. Luckily, there was only light pouring out from under one door so it was easy to find the room.

Jason raced to the kids side and knew next to him. It seemed that all of his training had left him as his hands fluttered uselessly over the younger boy.

If he was Robin he would know what to do, Robin always knew, but he wasn’t Robin right now. Right now he was Jason Todd and he had no clue.

_ Call 911, _ a very Bruce-like voice cut through his panic.

Jason dug around in his pockets before a cold sense of dread settled over him as he realized he had forgotten his phone at home. Quickly scanning the room, his eyes caught the edge of a phone on the kids bedside table. He lunged across the room and just about tore the charging cord out of it in his haste.

With shaking hands, Jason swiped up on the  _ Emergency Call _ icon and dialed 911.

_ “911, what’s your emergency?” _

“Help,” Jason croaked out, “my- it’s my neighbor. I think he over- over… I think he ODed. Please send help, I don’t know what to do!”

_ “First, I need you to stay calm, can you tell me where you are?” _

Jason rattled off the address to the best of his ability but it didn’t feel real. It felt like he was outside his body, like he was only observing the proceedings instead of being right in the thick of it. He watched as his body answered the rest of the operator's questions. He watched as his body followed the operators instructions to turn the kid on his side and stick two fingers on a pulse point. He watched as emergency responders flooded the bedroom and took the kid away.

He didn’t actually start to feel until someone draped a blanket across his shoulders. The blanket was itchy against his bare neck but it was warm, it felt better than the cold and numbness that he had been feeling for the past… for a while.

Someone was asking about a number and a… guard? Oh,  _ guardian. _

He didn’t know if the number he gave was actually Bruce’s, all he could do was hope.

Someone was wrapping an arm around him and it felt like a dam burst. Tears started to fall and his semi-controlled breathing turned into shuddering sobs. Jason turned into the one-armed hug, not really caring who it was, and let everything out.

The other person began to rub circles into his back and said something too soft for him to properly catch. It didn’t really matter anyways because in a few minutes Jason had cried himself to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Summery: Jason sneaks past the Drakes security and climbs a tree that grows right outside the window with the light. The tree is very old and completely dead so the limbs break very easy. At the place where the tree meets the window with light coming from it the branches are broken. That wouldn’t have been a problem if the window was also opened but the window was not.
> 
> Jason peers through the window and sees that it is a kids room in the other side. The kids room is lived in a way that being out of the country 11 months out of the years should not allow. Jason brain throws up some halfhearted theories on why this may be, but they are all dismissed as the facts of a child living alone in Drake Manor stares him in the face. The kid in question, Tim, then enters from a side door. Jason takes in his appearance and quickly notes the glazed over eyes. Tim then collapses an Jason freaks out.
> 
> The front door of the manor is, luckily, unlocked. When Jason reaches Tim’s side, he has a little freak out, temporarily forgets how to deal with people who have ODed, and realizes that he left his phone at Wayne Manor. Jason then finds Tim’s phone and uses that to call 911. Throughout the entire call Jason is particularly dissociating. He doesn’t really begin to stop desolating until one of the Emergency Responders puts a shock blanket over his shoulders.
> 
> One of the responders then asks for a guardians phone number and Jason gives it to them. Jason begins to cry from emotional exhaustion. An unnamed character then comforts him and Jason cries himself to sleep.


	4. Tim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning, another heavy chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure, this was not supposed to be a Tim chapter. The chapter that was supposed to be here is proving difficult for me to write, but I will prevail! That chapter had just a little bit of fluff that you guys deserve for putting up with all this whump.
> 
> Chapter four TW’s: intrusive thoughts, suicidal intentions, drug use/abuse, addiction/developing an resistance, and overdosing.
> 
> As always, if I missed something, please tell me.
> 
> (Chapter summery in endnotes, curtesy of sid_pinetree)

The light had helped, for a while at least.

It had helped until he found the emptiness hiding underneath his bed, behind his dresser, in any and all shadows that just seemed to grow longer and darker as the night continued on.

He bought a nightlight for every outlet. He threw handfuls of glow sticks under his bed. He strapped a flashlight to the back of his dresser. Fairy lights now lined the ceiling of his room.

It had helped until he found it creeping into his sleeping thoughts too. It sank its fangs into his dreams. It clawed the nicest daydreams into the worst nightmares.

When he woke up, it pinned him to his bed. It would whisper in his ears all of the things it would do, but not yet, it was still too soon.

The first time he put the sleeping pills onto the grocery list, he spent the whole day waiting for his parents to jump out from behind a corner and scream _‘GOTCHA!’_ He didn’t exactly know what they thought of medicine, but he doubted it to be anything good, after all, they’ve never even kept aspirin in the house.

If they knew he had no drought that they would decide that he couldn’t actually live by himself. They would be so disappointed in him, they had trusted him for years to take care of himself _and here he was buying sleeping aids! Did he not realize he put them through already! He was always underfoot and now they were going to have to rehire a nanny just because he couldn’t get to sleep! His very existence was a plague upon his parents, no wonder they were gone so often._

_Why do they even bother to come back at all?_

Tim jerked up from his slouched position at the kitchen counter. His eyes flickered around the space as he listened for the- there! There it was, the hissing silence. 

The emptiness trailed one pair of cold hands down his arms and another gripped him around the waist.

No.

No, no, no, no, no, no! The emptiness wasn’t supposed to come out during the day! He was supposed to be safe during the day!

He tried to rip himself away but the hands just followed him. Another trailed down his spine and rested at the small of his back. Frost seemed to spread across his skin from the points of contact.

Tim ran. He ran out the door and into the sunlight. He ran down his driveway and bypassed the gate easily. He ran down the road until he could grip the bus stop bench with shaking fingers, three miles from his house.

Finally, the feeling of emptiness slid from his body and his frosted skin began to melt in the midday sun.

He doesn’t return to the manor that night.

The first box is small and unassuming.

Laying on the bathroom counter, it looked like the night sky had inverted. The dark purple against the pure white was a beautiful contrast that he wished he could capture with his camera.

The box laid there, silently accusing him. Of what, he didn’t know.

The emptiness was hiding behind the shower curtain. Occasionally it would poke its head and remind him why he hadn’t thrown the box away yet.

It takes until his watch reads 12:01 a.m. for him to actually open the package and slide out one of the aluminum trays. The packaging reflects the fluorescent lighting onto the walls and Tim takes a second more to distract himself.

12:07 a.m. is when he finally pops two pills from their shared plastic bubble.

Three more minutes before he swallows them with some water.

He leaves the dark purple box on the white countertop as he drags himself to bed. The emptiness follows, but at a distance.

There were no dreams that night.

He follows the box's instructions, of course. He only takes the pills when he knows a night will be bad, and never two days in a row. Sure he was still taking them every other day, but that was okay.

He followed the instructions for three months.

Three months of escaping the emptiness with dreamless pills, and then… well, he forgot okay? He forgot that he had takentwo pills yesterday and he took two more today.

Luckily his stomach remembered and he spent the next half an hour over the toilet.

He promises himself that he was never going to do that again.

He follows the box’s instructions for another two months.

The pills weren’t working as well as they had in the beginning. The emptiness was starting to creep back into his dreams.

He pops two plastic bubbles tonight. Four pills fall into his hand. He puts one back, he remembers what happened last time.

Once again, he had a dreamless night.

Three pills, he said. Three pills is the most.

Three pills was the most he took until they stopped working too.

Then it was four.

But four was the most he was going to take. Four pills will work forever, right?

When that stopped, it was five pills. Five pills and if needed to take more he would stop.

The last six pills of the box are in his hand.

_Why is he doing this? Doesn’t he deserve nightmares and torment? Why should he have relieve while everyone else suffers because of him?_

Tim shook his head to clear the emptiness’s words. He brought his shaking hand to his mouth and swallowed the pills dry.

He felt the emptiness retreat. It stayed curling at the edge of his vision, but it wasn’t whispering to him any more.

Besides, there was something else he was feeling.

There was a feeling of complete and utter numbness just beyond his reach. Maybe if he had just one more pill, but no- he had already finished off the package. He can’t get more until next week.

His stomach tried to climb up his throat and jump out his mouth. He forced it down. He couldn’t lose the pills now.

Tim just needed to get to bed. Yeah, that sounded like a swell plan. Get to bed, curl up, and have a blissfully dreamless night. That sounded nice. Maybe he could grab the numbness and wrap it around his shoulders to help ward off the emptiness.

He had only made it a few steps out of his bathroom before something at his window caught his attention.

Tim blinked. And then blinked again.

There was a Robin outside his window.

Did he hear me? Tim thought, Did he hear me calling to him? Is he here to save me from this emptiness?

If his stomach wasn’t currently rebelling against him, he might have found it funny. _Of course Robin wasn’t here to save him. He was worthless. There was no point in saving him._

“Bye bye birdie.” He said as the world spun.

The feeling seemed to get stronger the longer he stood there. He reached for it, grasped it with his fingertips, and the world became an empty nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Summery: It started off as a way to get rid of that awful empty feeling. Just the recommended amount until the pills weren't working anymore. And then it was just one more until somehow it was six. Maybe he just needed one more but there were no more. When did Robin get here?

**Author's Note:**

> I wonder who left that at light on 🤔


End file.
